Earlier today, I tweeted the following statement:
Been thinking a lot about what “Enough” means for my life and biz. If I don’t know where there is, how can I get there?
The reactions to this statement were interesting. One reaction was that asking someone to be, have, or do less than they can is too much to ask. Another was that we can’t assume a “there” even exists.
Sufficiency and Abundance Are Incompatible. Right?
What fascinates me when I talk about sufficiency is there’s always some pushback against the idea. The immediate thing that many people hear is that I’m advancing a scarcity mindset. The idea seems to be that sufficiency and abundance can’t play well with each other, even though I’ve never said as much.
Perhaps I do have a scarcity mindset. Our time and energy is finite. We walk on this earth for a while, and then we don’t. Similarly, stars form, burn, and die, either in a cold death or in a supernova.
At the same time, our energy lives on. Those we touch that follow after us carry the effects of our lives with them. Our remains return back to the ground or sky. And those stars that die set the conditions for new galaxies and stellar developments.
More Contentment, Please
Less abstractly, though, contentment comes from what we have being enough for us. In a world of more, bigger, faster, and stronger, this is hard to hear, but at the same time, we live in a world where technological and social progress hasn’t yielded a commensurate amount of progress in our contentment. We gave up a few things when we gained abundance.
I’m blessed to work with thought leaders, peak performers, and people who are making a difference in small and big ways. My role is to help them tap into their potential so they flourish. The key word in that last sentence, though, is flourish. I routinely guide my clients and friends to do less in one domain so they can do more in another; rather than spending the weekend working to grow their business, say, I’ll ask them to spend time with their families or get out for the weekend. The point of all the striving and effort is to flourish, not just to be on the endless pursuit of more.
What happens nine times out of ten is that they come back to whatever they’re doing refreshed, whole, and able to engage and get some great work done. Thus the apparent paradox: by doing less, they’re able to do more.
Contentment and Growth
A worry that some people have is that being content would keep them from innovating, growing, and actualizing their potential. The idea here seems to be that contentment and creative tension can’t coexist together – much like how sufficiency and abundance aren’t consistent with each other. Notice the pattern here?
The counter-intuitive truth is that knowing that we already have enough is what allows us to take steps more confidently than we can when we’re operating from deficiency, especially when those steps will have second- and third-order effects we can’t see. This bears out equally in the patience of strategic thinkers to the willingness of people to give to charity when they feel they have enough to the ability to step back from a day’s work knowing that we’ve done our daily tasks. Knowing that we are or have done enough, we can be or do more.
Yet Another Flux
Like other dyadic forces in our lives such as possibility and actuality, we’re in constant flux between scarcity and abundance. It’s striking how much time, energy, and attention we spend in figuring out how to get more and how little we spend getting clear about what our enough point is. As convenient and easy as a simple either/or picture around scarcity and abundance is, the more accurate and challenging picture is that it’s both. Hence the need for some reflection on enough.
Look at the different realms of your life. What would it feel like to be content with your body? To be satisfied emotionally? To be comfortable socially? To be mentally still and focused? To be financially secure? To feel spiritually whole?
If these things sound desirable to you, it’s contentment and sufficiency you’re seeking. Knowing the “what” empowers you to figure out the “how.”
Yes. Oh, yes. The relentless pursuit of more leads to all sorts of problems; stress-related illness, marriage and family difficulties… I also think it’s safe to say that this phenomenon contributed to the Enron / Goldman Sachs / BP disasters. Because people cut corners when their primary goal is “more.”
I’m a firm believer in embracing “good enough.” Great post, Charlie.
Thanks, Kathleen!
Hey Charlie,
Thanks for yet another captivating post that’s got me thinking. This is one blog I really can’t (try as I might) skim read 😉
I’ve noticed a strong “less is more” attitude starting to emerge in the self-help and business coaching space, in the last couple of years. To be honest, it kind of disturbs me a little bit when someone makes it their goal to get by on as little as possible (financially)… perhaps donating any excessive income to charity.
Don’t get me wrong – I *love* the concept of less is more. I totally agree with you and the way you’d advise clients to recharge their batteries by spending time NOT working.
But, I don’t quite understand why entrepreneurs wouldn’t always want to shoot as high as possible in terms of their financial goals. That way, if they are donating to charity, they’re likely to have far more of a positive impact.
Why set up a “lifestyle” business that pays you a basic salary when you could build an empire that pays you, loads of staff AND a charity (or ten). Plus, no one ever said you had to work a million hours.
I think theres a misguided perception that the old-school brand of millionaire entrepreneur is stuck in a rut working 100 hour weeks. This may be true for some, but in my experience the vast majority of the “more is more” successful crowd enjoy a fantastic lifestyle… while also making an exponentially bigger impact.
So, I guess I’m saying that I’m a fan of “more is more is more”…. build something that’s big, spend time relaxing and with family as WELL.
Do it all. 😉
Hey Peter,
If I might reply here and challenge you a bit in a friendly way, have you read “Small Giants” by Bo Burlingham?
He chronicles companies that chose to stay small when they had the opportunity to be bigger for extremely good reasons.
I do think there can be an issue with folks who haven’t confronted their own money issues, and so are scraping by fearfully in survival mode. But that’s not what Charlie is talking about here.
Our culture of more-more-more always go for as much as you can well, because you can, is destroying the planet. It’s destroying the quiet time in our lives. And it’s created behemoth corporations that answer to no one, making catastrophic decisions, and leaving the mess to be cleaned up by others.
The economic mess the global economy is in I think speaks very eloquently why one shouldn’t go for as much as one possibly can…
There’s also a simple fact that going for more involves more work. Many business gurus like to sell the notion that big success can be had easily, but the folks I know of who have made it big continue to work hard, caught in workaholic cycles that cost them in other ways.
There’s also the book “Slow Money” by Woody Tasch which you might be interested in reading.
Once we get past survival-level and start having some breathing room, I believe any entrepreneur would do well looking in their heart and conscience to see what “enough” is for them.
Hey Mark,
Always happy to engage in a friendly challenge of ideas 😉 I’m not totally sold on my own ideas here 😛 ….. but I’ll stick up for ’em anyway eh?
I think that it’s possible to find specific examples where more-is-more is a good thing… and where it’s not. I haven’t read that book, but I certainly understand your point. “Rework” by the 37Signals guys has some similar ideas.
There’s a lot to be said for building boutique businesses and avoiding the pitfalls of becoming ultra-global-mega-corp. That said, the boutique businesses like 37Signals are still highly profitable and no doubt make their owners rich AND free. The bone I have to pick is with the solopreneur types who choose a subsistence income voluntarily.
Also, regarding the destruction of the world: I tend to assume a high-integrity idealism, so yes…. more-is-more-is-more can go horribly wrong. It can go right too though – look at Microsoft for example. Not all global mega-corps destroy the planet and I think that it doesn’t make sense to always consider the size of a company as representative of the environmental impact it makes. But again, idealistically speaking, why not shoot to build an empire that does big things without harming the planet?
Regarding the workaholic thing. Again, I think this goes both ways. I’ve also met people who are hugely financially successful and don’t live that workaholic lifestyle. Again, viewing size of company as representative of the stress levels of the owner is, in my opinion, not always accurate. In fact, a really well run company and management hierarchy should leave the owner with a relatively clear schedule. Just ask Richard Branson – I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t trade his lifestyle for any other.
It’s worth noting that when talking about this stuff, I come across as idealistic and overly-ambitious in my expectations for entrepreneurs. I realise it’s not as easy as it sounds. However, we are talking about what to “aim” for – so let’s set the bar high yeah?
Just my two cents 🙂
You won’t find any disagreement from either of us on this one. (I’m speaking for Mark here – he’ll correct me if I’m wrong.) Where you might find some disagreement is the notion that pushing-pushing-pushing for more income gets carte blanche.
As for aiming, yes, it’s good to have big goals. I also think it’s good to recognize that some of those big goals may not be compatible with each other at the same time. Where they are, great! Where they aren’t, perhaps it’s time to ask what’s worth what?
I copied the same sentence as Charlie before seeing his reply.
There’s a difference between people choosing a subsistence level voluntarily, and many struggling solopreneurs who believe that they have only one choice, feel powerless, or are stuck.
I have friends who clearly live in a simple state of contentment and sufficiency, and it’s pure choice. There may be times that they may think “gee, it would be nice to have ___.” Among the most content and sufficient people I know are some in-laws in very rural Maine, who finally went lux and built an outhouse!
But I also know people of wealth and fame who wish for simplicity and anonymity at times.
But for the ones living in fear of survival, convinced that life will never be otherwise, I have both compassion and some tough love. It’s hard to think creatively and to see other pathways when you’re stuck at the lower levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy.
A number of years ago, I met with a friend who had just minutes before learned that she’d been laid off, and wasn’t eligible for unemployment insurance. After trying to calm her down for half an hour, she said that she had $120,000 in savings. She had enough cash to cover her lifestyle for four years without cutting anything out.
Great post Charlie!
Thanks for seeing that I wasn’t advocating being stuck in survival mode, brother! Our intermittent discussions about this are helping me stay with this thread longer, and I appreciate you for that.
Thanks for the comment about skimming! The great thing about the topic, though, is that it lends itself well to slowing down.
It’s interesting that you read this as “enough is all you get.” The refined point that I wish I would have made is that embracing “enough” enables us to make better choices about the more that we want to let into our lives.
Perhaps the “more is more” crowd of which you speak gets something that I’ve failed to grasp yet. I see many of the things that Mark mentions when people act without principled choices around abundance. I have a lot to learn, though, and I’ve only been here 30 years, so if I find a way to “do it all” at the same time, I’ll make sure to share it. My own path has shown me the opposite thus far, though.
I agree Charlie and I thank you for the discussion. The great thing here, for me at least, is that this is making me *think* a bit harder. Which is good.
I’m with you 100% regarding the principled choices. I guess my whole position on this issue presupposes that we’re all acting with principals and integrity. In the real world, that ain’t the case a lot of the time… so I can see how the “more is more” crowd has created a bad name for themselves.
Still, I hope in my lifetime to see the minority “more is more… with integrity” crowd…. grow.
“Abundance is a quality of Spirit, meaning it is always present, just like love or joy… In being peaceful we have peace, in being loving our experience is love…These qualities don’t exist ‘out there’.”
One of my clients passed this book on to me, The Abounding River Personal Logbook; An Unfamiliar View of Being Abundance – I think you would like it. Love your work. Best, Kimberly
Thanks for the recommendation, Kimberly – I’ll put it in the queue. And thanks for the kinds words, too!
“The point of all the striving and effort is to flourish, not just to be on the endless pursuit of more.”
thats the the line that speaks to me the most. Striving shouldnt be an endless “pursuit of hapiness”, there must be a point where we can stop and smell the roses, while we continue to reach out to being the best we can be. Contentment should live side by side with Productive Flourishing, otherwise whats the point?
Indeed, what is the point? If only quantity translated seamlessly into quality…
This sentence jumped out for me: “The counter-intuitive truth is that knowing that we already have enough is what allows us to take steps more confidently than we can when we’re operating from deficiency.”
This reminds me of the Gestalt paradoxical theory of change — that one moves toward change by first being more of who you already are.
Having that solid place to stand lets you reach farther, aspire higher. If you want to — that’s always a choice, right? But the more filled-up we are, the more we are healthy and whole, the more choices we can see.
Reading your blog always gets me going, Charlie. Thank you.
Thank you for the reflections, Pam! Especially the point about being “filled up”.
Not as paradoxical as it sounds – since many people are stuck doing things that aren’t true to theirselves, it takes a big change just to become yourself! And if what you are changes others, then being more yourself will increase the level of change.
Sufficiency and abundance, possibility and actuality, contentment and creative tension — each pair exists together because each pair of seeming opposites are polarities on the same continuum. The differences between them is just a matter of degree, or perhaps, perceived degree.
As Charlie has noted, our culture is one of extremes, stuck at one polarity, then swinging to the other.
Exploring the vast untapped area between might be an interesting adventure in sufficiency and flourishing.
Rock on, Charlie.
Thanks, Marsha! I have a challenging time anymore with polar thinking – when I was younger, I was much fonder of it. Now I see that so many of my preferences were set because it was easier to think that way than to assess things anew all the time. Don’t get me wrong: there is a place for polar thinking, but it seems like the more important the question, the an either/or answer is correct.
Hey Charlie,
Polar thinking is indeed easier, as is all black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking. I was trying to suggest that things really aren’t that opposite as we think they are, and freeing ourselves from having to stay stuck at one or another extreme does give us the flexibility to assess things anew.
One of my meditation teachers is fond of saying: “What you resist you become.” His point is the energy we use resisting attaches us to the thing we’re resisting. I try to remember this when I run headlong into the scarcity mindset I grew up with. 🙂
Thanks for hosting a thought-provoking discussion.
Being in the middle of a really big “stretching” time, the sense of ease in this post was very comforting. And it’s interesting to look more deeply into the motivation and the energy I’m holding around this growth to see where it’s coming from the sheer joy of just growing and seeing hopes realized and where there are also twinges of having to make up for “not being there yet”.
I resonate with your comment about how knowing we already have enough gives us a confidence that isn’t there when we come from deficiency.
And in my experience it’s also knowing that we ARE enough that allows us the ease and the space to move in balance. I see a lot of striving that comes as a compensation for a hole inside that still needs filling.
No matter what we do to the bucket, if it has a hole in it, it will leak. Better to spend more time on the hole than the decorations. 😛
I’m fascinated about enough and satisfaction, have been so much I wrote that whole digital kit about it, and am building a new retreat and even new business around it. Thank for a great post to help me think even deeper. Charlie!
We should talk sometime, Jennifer. It seems like we’re both feeling the elephant from different sides. 🙂
I have a micro business and would like it to be bigger but not so big that it would consume me, so your post resonated with me.
Then I read Peter Shallard’s comment and got even more resonation. The two of you are not conflicting in approach: More is better when more is worked smarter.
Glad this resonated, Sharon. You’re right about me and Peter – I think we’re expressing different aspects of something rather than being in conflict.
I think you can be content (satisfied and grateful) for the life you have while still striving for more. I think a lot of it depends upon your motives. In the past, I’ve pursued success for purely selfish reasons. I still have a selfish streak in me, but now I’m intentionally looking for ways to help others. Whether that be in my daily job, community activities, or online ventures. Since I’ve stopped being so self-absorbed, I’m much more appreciative of what I have in my life. I still have a long way to go, but don’t we all.
Yes, we all have a way to go. It’s not as if we can practice once and then have mastered it – it’s a continual learning process as we work through the different fluxes we wander into.
I also love to see that you’ve found more appreciation in other-related activities. That’s another one of those non-obvious things about life.
Charlie,
Lately the subject of enough has been a passion of mine (I’ve been writing about it all over my blog) and I think you summed it up beautifully when you said: “knowing that we already have enough is what allows us to take steps more confidently than we can when we’re operating from deficiency.”
But really there’s another level here. It’s not just having enough or not having enough, it’s a matter of degrees and one’s own relationship with needing, wanting, and having. That relationship is extremely dependent upon how you grew up, how your needs were responded to and how those around you responded to needing, wanting, and having.
I think that feeling like you have more than enough opens up the space for creativity, stretching, and generosity. As Kimberly commented: “abundance is a quality of spirit” and I’d like to add to that: it’s also a state of mind. It’s a state of mind that is rooted in safety and that’s the part that allows confidence to lead. And isn’t that a much better place to operate from–confidence instead of deficiency? I think so.
I love the line “ contentment comes from what we have being enough for us.” So true. Thanks for a really thought provoking post.
Thanks for the wonderful comment, Cathy. I agree about the frame of mind, too – and like any frame of mind, it has to be cultivated and tended to.
Charlie,
This is a great post with some great points. When I responded to your tweet that we can’t assume “there” even exists, I wasn’t sure I understood what you were implying. (My bad!)
I completely agree with the idea of being content – which means looking at what we currently have and finding joy in it.
I also know from reading your blog that you would probably agree with me that contentment doesn’t mean we won’t continue to grow and excel in what we do.
I was under the impression from your tweet that you might have been looking at things and saying to yourself, “When I get to such-and-such level, I will spend more time away from work.” My only point was that a statement like that assumes you’ll feel the same way when you hit those arbitrary levels. Chasing a mark like that can be dangerous if, in the process, we’re putting off things that we shouldn’t be (like family) for something we may or may not ever reach.
I now understand that wasn’t what you were implying and I can agree that what you’re contemplating is great. We all need to pause and appreciate what we have instead of always assuming that more = better.
Cheers,
Travis
To me, abundance means more choices and I don’t want to limit my choices. Charlie, as you pointed out in your October post about abundance, it’s time consuming to have more choices. It takes more energy, more responsibility, etc. The Paradox of Choice talks about consumers refusing to choose at all when the number of choices gets too high.
But that is part of self management; deciding for yourself what is enough is terms of what you get to choose from and then allowing yourself to be happy with your choice (that’s the harder part!). People who say TV is evil and boast about how they tossed theirs in the trash mystify me. Just turn it off when there’s nothing good to watch. When something interesting is on, watch it. Why permanently cut yourself off from possibility and choice?
To say that we all must limit our choices is to say we aren’t mature enough to exercise our free will.
I would guess that those who responded that this is a scarcity mindset are experiencing that mindset themselves. If they can’t accept the thought that “I don’t necessarily need anything more out of life at this time, but I may choose to try something else later on” it’s most likely out of insecurity and a need to gather everything they can before it goes away. That’s the difference between abundance and fear/greed.
Personally I’ve made a big shift around this in the last year; since I’ve always read a lot of personal finance, business, and investing material I tried to make plans around living exclusively in the future until I had gathered everything I could possibly need for the rest of my life before I was 30, refusing to live in the present more than the bare minimum necessary for survival until I reached that point. At first this was a valuable tool because I learned something I hadn’t experienced before but in the end it was just training wheels.
After some reflection I realized the extreme scarcity and fear mindset that was driving me to continue this, and discovered that I could choose to live like that for the rest of my life (does anyone with a bit of real world experience think I would have had enough at any time?) or make a shift toward experiencing what I wanted to buy with success so that I know if it’s right for me and I can always keep it as a part of my life.
I’m still making massive long-term investments that limit what I can do now and that I expect to provide the foundations for a very uncommon lifestyle in the future. However I’ve also given up a lot of potential future gains to spend time and money on things that I enjoy now – even a few things that would make the average personal finance blog fan faint in shock.
Call it waste or call it a sample to motivate me but once I realized what I hoped to get from my business/investing success and that a large part of it didn’t even need to be bought, I knew what abundance really is – not doing everything you possibly could in one area but having a few good things and the time to enjoy them. There is an abundance of other people to do all the other things that I don’t. When all my basic needs are met I truly have an abundance of time to shoot for much higher goals. But whether it works this year or in 5 years I don’t take it personally because it’s just a game and what I really need surrounds me in abundance. And I think I win for using the word “abundance” the most times in one paragraph 🙂
One thing I notice about ‘abundance’ is that it sometimes comes from a mindset of anythinganythinganything is possible if only you would believe/strive/relax/let go hard enough…
Sometimes when I tune in ‘behind’ the insistence on abundance I sense a fear of not having enough (ie scarcity.).
I am very interested in the concept of enough – of actually sitting in the life I have. Having my ass half up out of the chair looking at the next step means I never actually sit down… ‘Enough’ helps me to be more still and happier with what I have. And it doesn’t mean I suddenly stop wanting, working, moving forwards…
Thanks for the reminder – important.
(Jen Louden’s Satisfaction Finder kit is awesome. If you do a joint project with her on enoughness, I want in! 🙂 )
Wanting what we have.
From the viewpoint of metaphysics, since all we really have is this present moment, it is beneficial to always feel you are and have enough NOW, to appreciate what you have NOW, because what you are thinking now expands and creates your future “nows”.
If I fluctuate between scarcity and abundance my life will reflect that. So my answer to “where enough is” is that it is always right where you are right now. Thanks for this thought provoking post!
Great article. For more reflections on Sufficiency vs. Abundance, go to the Global Sufficiency Network. http://globalsufficiency.org.